Saturday, 11 March 2017

REMINISCING REPOST: SMASH, BANG, WALLOP, WHAT A COMIC MAG...

It lasted a total of 257
issues - and there would
have been more if not for

a printing strike lasting
several weeks in 1970.

It outlived companion
titles WHAM! (187
issues), POW! (86),

FANTASTIC (89)
and TERRIFIC (43),
essentially becoming a
"best of" repository for
all of them - but only for
about 6 months. Then
it was out with the old

and in with the new,
and what would have
been #163 became the
first issue of the 'NEW'SMASH!, devoid ofMARVEL reprints and more in line with the traditional British boys comics like VALIANT andLION. (It was the 48th anniversary of that relaunch
on the 8th of this month, unless I'm very much mistaken.)

SMASH! was a superb comic, and the one in which I was first

introduced to the FANTASTIC FOUR. When ODHAMS PRESS
first reprinted the origin of the FF, they did so in WHAM! and SMASH!

title at the conclusion of the first episode of the four-part tale. Want to read
the next instalment of the quartet's debut adventure? You could only do so
in the next issue of WHAM! - according to WHAM!, that is. If, however,
you were reading SMASH!, it was claiming sole publishing rights for the
next part of the story. An intentional two-pronged promotion of the FF
to double their readership potential? Or an emergency measure neces-
sitated by the non-arrival of a regular strip for SMASH!? I guess
only ALF, BART and COS know for certain - I sure don't.

﻿﻿

Art by Jack Kirby & Vince Colletta

When I later discovered that REED, BEN, SUSAN and JOHNNY were

regularly appearing in WHAM! ("The COMIC With The FANTASTIC

FOUR!"), I started buying that title too in order to feed my infatuation with

the INVISIBLE GIRL, but I continued to buy SMASH! as well. Then POW!

(after WHAM! was merged with it) and alsoFANTASTICand TERRIFIC.
It's ironic that SMASH!, having been the first 'POWER' periodical I read -

and the one in which I first discovered Marvel's most famous family - was
also the last title standing, as well as the comic in which the FF made their
home for the last few months of their Odhams Press existence.

I'd actually forgotten that I'd first read the FF origin in Smash!, JP, and wondered why, in memory, I associated it with Batman. I'd assumed that because the FF appeared in Wham!, that's where I must've read their origin, but I realised my error when I discovered many years later that the story had been reprinted in both comics simultaneously.

STUDIO 77

About the artist:

From 1985 to 2000 A.D. (little joke there), I contributed to a variety of high profile comics and magazines for various companies.

For IPC/FLEETWAY/EGMONT, I freelanced as a lettering and logo artiston various weekly comics and monthly magazines, and also as a resize comic artistandspot illustratoron pocket books, summer specials and annuals.

ForMARVEL U.K., BLACK LIBRARY, REDAN and USBORNE BOOKS, I again freelanced as a lettering artist, also working as arestoration artistfor MARVEL U.S., restoring and re-creating certain pages of JACK KIRBY art for their MARVEL MASTERWORKS editions.

I also lettered the MARVELMAN sample pages submitted to MARVEL U.S. when they were considering acquiring the character, which - as we all now know - they DID.

Supplied comic strips, cartoons and illustrated advertisements for local business campaigns and newspaper publication on a professional basis since the age of 16. Did my first paid art job for publication at 14 or 15 for Lanarkshire Education Board.

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